Ten Things
by Hatter of Madness
Summary: "I was thinking that since I was ten years old, you should tell me ten things about my daddy." What does Cat Valentine think of when her daughter wants to know about the dad she never knew?


**~*~Ten Things~*~**  
**by Hatter of Madness**

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_Ten facts about my daddy_

_1. He is handsome  
2. He is talented  
3. He is insecure and shy  
4. He likes to make people laugh  
5. He is a good friend  
6. He looks out for people  
7. He is smart  
8. He can be emotional  
9. He is loyal  
10. He loved me_

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"Rachael Lydia" was the name my mother called me when she was angry or upset with me, which she rarely was. It was hard to see my mother upset about anything, simply because it very rarely happened.

She was a happy woman, and once or twice she showed me her high school yearbook. She looked young and vivacious in it; it was hard to believe that this was my mother. _My _mother was not the type of person to dye her hair cherry red, but each picture in the Hollywood Arts yearbook featured a girl with hair so red, it was like a fire engine. _My _mother was not the type of person to have such young skin, either. It was as though she had been left out in the sun and shriveled up.

My mother didn't look old by any means. She looked exactly her age, which was thirty. I was born 'out of wedlock', as my mother called it, but other people would tell me I was 'a mistake'.

My name was Rachael Lydia, but my mother never called me Rachael. She always called me Lydia because it was her mother's name and she loved her. Rachael was something my father picked out, but I didn't remember him.

Another thing that was hard to believe about my mother: Her yearbook said her name was Cat Valentine, but I only knew her as 'the teacher' because that was her job. It seemed like she had a lecture for anything. If I did anything she would teach and teach and teach, and tell me what I did was wrong and give me a life lesson. It was hard to believe that _my _mother had gone to a performing arts high school and had grown up to become something as boring as a teacher.

The summer that I was ten I received a diary as a present from my uncle. He was the teacher's brother and they got along really well with each other, even as adults. But that diary was like my new best friend. I wrote everything in it, from the grades I got on my spelling tests to the results of my tee ball team, even though we weren't supposed to really care about it. But I cared, because tee ball was something I liked to do, and it was something I wanted to remember, forever.

It was a diary entry, actually, that started the thing with my daddy.

_Dear diary,_

_For as long as I can remember, my daddy's been gone. Mama said that he wasn't always gone and he was the one that named me Rachael even though Mama always calls me Lydia. But she still recognizes that my name's Rachael (that was something she said to me the other day)._

_I think that since I'm ten years old she should tell me ten things about my daddy. That's all I want to know. Just ten things. It's not a lot. It's just enough for me to know a bit more about my daddy because I don't know a lot about him at all. All I know is his last name because it's my last name but that's because Mama never bothered to change it to Valentine. She said that she should since my daddy isn't here anymore._

_I don't even know what happened to him. I don't even know if he's dead or alive. That's why I think that Mama should tell me ten things about my daddy. Maybe then one day I can find him and he can come back and be my daddy again if he's still alive._

_From Rachael Lydia_

I set my diary down and brushed my hair, then went to find the teacher. She was looking at papers from her kindergarten class from the past years. They were letters that they wrote her for the summer and looking at them reminded me of times when I didn't have to think about not having a daddy.

"Mama," I said after a really long time. She looked at me.

"Hi, Lydia," she said, smiling at a letter written by a little boy named James, who wrote his 'j' backwards. When I was in kindergarten I already knew how to read and write, and the teacher had said once that my daddy had taught me. That was another thing I knew about him, but I was sure that a lot of girls knew how to read because of their daddies.

"Mama," I said again. She finished reading the next letter, set it down, and looked at me.

"What, baby?"

"Mama, I was thinking. I was thinking that since I was ten years old, you should tell me ten things about my daddy. That's all."

She looked at me a really long time.

"Just ten things," I said again. "That's all I want to know. Then you can look at your papers again."

She looked at me a really long time again.

"I just don't know anything about my daddy except his last name because it's mine and the fact that he taught me how to read and write because a lot of daddies teach their daughters how to read and write."

She looked at me a really long time again.

"Just ten _little _things," I said.

She sighed. "Just ten things," she said, and I knew she would tell me. I sat down on the chair next to her and waited with my hands in my lap.

"That's all," I said and nodded my head.

"Number one," she said, and I could feel little butterflies springing to life in my stomach, the same way I felt before a tee ball game because I wanted my mama to be proud of me. I wanted to be someone she wasn't embarrassed of. "Number one was that your daddy was very handsome. He had black hair that was very curly and pale skin and big brown eyes."

"Just like me," I said.

"Just like you," the teacher agreed. "And he had glasses, too. He was handsome, but he wasn't very popular."

"Why not?"

She sighed. "Because," was the answer. "Number two was that he was very talented," she said. "He could act, and he could sing, and play guitar."

That made sense. The teacher had said a few things about high school and sometimes when she talked about high school she said things about 'your daddy', and the teacher went to a performing arts high school. I could imagine a man like Johnny Depp being my daddy, but I knew he didn't match the teacher's description.

"Number three: Your daddy was insecure. Very, very insecure, and very shy."

"I was like that, too. I didn't have a lot of friends at school when I was younger," I said to the teacher. "But now I know how to make friends."

She smiled at me and patted my head, then continued on. "Number four is that your daddy could make anyone laugh. He always made me smile."

I liked people like that, people that could always make other people feel happy about themselves. I liked knowing that my daddy was one of those people. It made me feel good inside.

"Number five," she said when she saw the smile on my face, "he was a very good friend. He was always willing to help people, even if it wouldn't benefit him."

"Was he a good friend to you?" I asked.

She smiled. "The best. Number six. He always looked out for me. And for you, too. He didn't like to see anyone upset."

"Why not?" I asked.

"It made _him _upset," she told me.

"Oh. That's a good reason, I guess," I said.

She nodded, then went back to thinking. "Number seven, he was the most intelligent man I have ever met. He was good at anything just because he was so smart. He was good at school and technology and could tell you what the square root of any number was, within just a few seconds, even if nobody was listening."

"That sounds like a boy at school," I said to her. "We're really good friends now, but he didn't use to like me."

"That's good," the teacher said. She looked like she was thinking real hard about my daddy. "Number nine."

"Number eight," I said.

"You're right. Number eight. Your daddy could be emotional sometimes."

"Like when?" I asked.

"Well, a lot of times. But the main thing that stands out to me is the day you were born. He wouldn't stop kissing you and he was crying like I had never seen before. Because your daddy had a certain quality about him that made it hard to see him so upset."

If I had ever seen my daddy upset, I would have hugged him and kissed him, the same way he did the day I was born.

"Number nine is that your daddy was a very loyal man."

"Loyal?" I frowned. "Then why did he leave us?"

She sighed. "He was loyal, but he was a complicated man. There was many different layers to his personality and it was hard to distinguish them sometimes." She paused again, then said, "And number ten was that he loved you very, very much."

"Then why did he leave us?" I said again.

The teacher frowned, and her eyes started to get really red and watery, like she was going to cry. "He wasn't happy with me. I just wasn't what he wanted anymore. And I begged him to stay, not for me but for you. But I changed him, in a way that he should have never been changed, and he was unhappy. It wasn't my place to tell him to stay. I'll never understand what made him so different from the man I knew, and I'll never forgive him for not getting to know you. I don't even know where he is."

"Can't you call him?"

She really did cry, and it was scary to see my mother cry. I knew the answer was 'no'.

"Thank you, Mama," I said, standing up. "Thank you for telling me." I walked back to my room and sat at my desk and looked at my diary, then I picked up my pencil and wrote the ten facts about my daddy.

I wrote about how he was handsome and talented and insecure and shy. I wrote that he liked to make people laugh and he was a good friend. I wrote that he looked out for me and the teacher. I wrote that he was smart, emotional, and loyal. And I took up an entire page to write that he loved me, but that he couldn't stay with the teacher and I because he wasn't happy. I didn't know him, but I did know that I missed my daddy.

I memorized the list the teacher had told me. The list was so that if I ever found my daddy, I would know it was him and I could tell him ten things about myself, too. And maybe after a while, I could get the teacher to tell me even more about my daddy, so that I could know everything there was about him.

I had noticed a while before that the teacher had stopped wearing her wedding ring. It was like she knew my daddy wasn't coming back. If I was a mistake then my parents couldn't have been married long before he left, I thought. That night I sneaked into the bathroom and took the wedding ring and put it on a chain. I put the chain around my neck and went back out to the chair where I had learned ten things about my daddy. The teacher had her yearbook sitting underneath her stack of papers and I pulled it out and looked through it.

I found a picture and knew it was my daddy, because he was handsome yet I could tell that he was shy, and a good friend, and loyal, and we had the same last name. I traced his name with my finger for a long time, trying to memorize his face. Then I memorized his name, so altogether I had memorized ten facts and his face and name.

His name was Robbie Shapiro.

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**I will leave this box of tissues here for everyone so you can cry :'( Um yes I got this idea from Because of Winn-Dixie. I know it's OOC for Robbie to leave anyone, but whatever, it's fanfiction. :p Um I know this probably sucked but I thought it was a cute idea so um yeah. Hi.**

**- Hatter of Madness**


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